landscape planning

Do you live in a home or community that is tucked into the woods? You could be at risk from wildland fires! Fortunately, taking proactive measures now can minimize the chances that your home will burn.

We all have a role to play—start by thinking about firewise landscaping for your home and community!

Your home: Home Ignition Zones (HIZ)

In the late 1990s, following breakthrough experimental research into how radiant heat ignites homes, retired USDA Forest Service fire scientist Jack Cohen developed the concept of three zones that affect whether or not a wildfire will ignite your home.

Home Ignition Zones

Immediate zone: the area up to five feet from the furthest attached exterior point of the home. This zone is the most vulnerable to embers from surrounding wildfire and requires immediate action. To minimize the chances of a wildland fire threatening your home, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), in its “Preparing Homes for Wildfire” brochure (link below), recommends taking the following steps:

Clean roofs and gutters of dead leaves, debris and pine needles that could catch embers.

Replace or repair any loose or missing shingles or roof tiles to prevent ember penetration.

Reduce embers that could pass through vents in the eaves by installing 1/8-inch metal mesh screening.

Repair or replace damaged or loose window screens and any broken windows. Screen or box-in areas below patios and decks with wire mesh to prevent debris and combustible materials from accumulating.

Move any flammable material away from wall exteriors, such as mulch, flammable plants, leaves, and firewood piles, basically anything that can burn.

Remove anything stored underneath decks or porches.

Intermediate zone: the area 5 to 30 feet from the furthest exterior point of the home. Landscaping and hardscaping in this zone can help decrease wildfire risk as it moves toward your home. The NFPA brochure includes the following:

Prune trees up to six to ten feet from the ground; for shorter trees do not exceed 1/3 of the overall tree height.

Space trees to have a minimum of eighteen feet between crowns with the distance increasing with the percentage of slope.

Tree placement should be planned to ensure the mature canopy is no closer than ten feet to the edge of the structure.

Tree and shrubs in this zone should be limited to small clusters of a few each to break up the continuity of the vegetation across the landscape.

Extended zone: in the area from 30 up to 200 feet away from your home you can interrupt a wildfire’s path, keep flames smaller, and on the ground. In this zone, the NFPA suggests:

Dispose of heavy accumulations of ground litter/debris.

Remove dead plant and tree material.

Remove small conifers growing between mature trees.

Remove vegetation adjacent to storage sheds or other outbuildings within this area.

Trees 30 to 60 feet from the home should have at least 12 feet between canopy tops

Trees 60 to 100 feet from the home should have at least 6 feet between the canopy tops.

Your landscape choices:

You may notice that these firewise guidelines are all about removing things from your landscape! Fortunately, there is also good information about how to select, place, and maintain plants to make your yard more firewise—see “Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina” link.

For the past few weeks, we’ve shared a series of blogs about gardening on slopes. Here’s a recap of the tips and techniques covered.

Before you plant

Spend a year looking out your windows before you ever put the first plant in the ground. What do you see—or would like to see? What problem areas need fixing?

Analyze your site, define your goals, and develop a plan.

Resolve stormwater runoff problems.

Tackle weeds now—and forever.

Install steps, paths, and hardscapes.

Do research to find the right plant for the right place. Be aware of the growth habits of different varieties within a plant species.

When you plant

Camouflage the slope so it’s not so overwhelming to look at. Do this by varying your plant heights, shapes, colors, and textures.

Create backdrops and focal points. These are places the eye stops and rests as you survey the garden. Use plants that act as visual markers of slope edges or entranceways to different parts of the garden.

Buy plants in small containers—one, two, and three-gallon sizes. They’re much easier to plant than large root balls, they establish themselves quicker, and they will soon catch up in size—and save you money in the process!

Slopes can be dry. A drip irrigation system is very effective and eliminates the need to drag heavy hoses up and down the hillside.

Reduce maintenance on slopes wherever you can. Fill in with ground covers and evergreen shrubs. Use reseeding flowers. Let your plants grow together and happily cohabitate.

While gardening on slopes can be challenging, those slopes need not intimidate you. With good gardening practices, you can create a beautiful and enjoyable steep slope garden paradise to enjoy for years to come.

Minimal maintenance is an oft-stated and laudable goal when it comes to slopes. But know that there’s never a maintenance-free garden—except maybe Mother Nature’s forests! We maintain to help our plants grow and establish, and to keep our gardens tidy and healthy.

Initially, you’ll find yourself crawling around on your slopes to pull weeds and fertilize new plantings. But if you’re persistent, if you install a good base of mulch or groundcover, and once your plants become established, maintenance gets easier and easier each year. If you’ve selected the right trees and shrubs for the space, you should have to do very little pruning beyond developmental pruning the first couple of years. If you’ve planted or seeded annuals and perennials, you may need to clean up spent flower heads and stems at the end of the season. Ornamental grasses need to be cut back in late winter. If you have grassy paths, you’ll need to string-trim or mow. If your paths are mulch, gravel, or wood chips, you will need to periodically refresh them.

I grab a bucket and walk through my garden once a week, hand-pulling weeds when I see them. This way, they never get out of control. At the same time, I look over my shrubs for signs of disease or insects that need attention. My grassy paths get a string trimming once every three weeks during the growing season. I allow perennials and annuals—echinachea, poppy, heliopsis, coreopsis, and cosmos—to reseed themselves freely on my steep slopes. Then I spend one nice day in December or January removing the spent flower stems and cleaning up the bank. I estimate about four to eight hours a week of maintenance in my half-acre steep slope garden.

My biggest maintenance challenge is replenishing mulch every other year as it decays and enriches the soil. I use double-ground hardwood mulch that knits together and sticks nicely to the slope. Climbing the hills and spreading the mulch one bucketful at a time is not an easy task. But as my groundcovers and shrubs fill in, I need less mulch each year and even this task is becoming easier.